Life in the Bus Lane

Matt has passed his driving test.

Congratulations Matt, thank god I live lots of miles away :)

Just got home from seeing The Damned at the Bristol Bierkeller, and they were fucking amazing.

It was the first proper gig I’d been to in more years that I care to mention, and to be honest, the Bierkeller hasn’t changed since I was last there a decade or so back, they might have cleaned the toilets though.

It was a superb night, just watching the tension and anticipation in the crowd rise as Captain Sensible and Patricia Morrison worked their way around the stage during Smash It Up (Part 1) was almost worth the ticket price itself, and when David Vanian erupted from behind the obligatory Marshall amp stack for Smash It Up (Part 2), the whole place literally exploded, much as it had done for New Rose 10 minutes earlier.

Shame I have to get up and go to work tomorrow.

Setlist
Disco Man
I Just Can’t Be Happy Today
See Her Tonite
Democracy
Amen
13th Floor Vendetta
Born To Kill
Ignite
Song.com
Street of Dreams
Would You Be So Hot
She
Neat Neat Neat (Break on Thro’)
History of the World
Eloise
New Rose
Love Song
Smash It Up
Looking At You.

I managed to lose 8.5lbs in the last four weeks - Yay.

I’m off to the The Damned in a short while - Yay.

And to tide me over, I’ve just started listening to I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue on BBC7 - Yay.

After a gap of several years, I finally have the ability to play my collection of vinyl again. After a minor cabling hiccup resulting in monophonic sound, everything worked perfectly.

First track played: Kill Your Television - Neds Atomic Dustbin

The new copy of Dirt fell through the door today.

Why the hell must they make it so fucking difficult to read? Everything is printed in miniscule text (maybe they should supply a free magnifying glass), on multicoloured backgrounds (which obliterates random words), and often at 45^o. OK, I admit the pictures are nice, but please make the words readable, or leave them out altogether. Hell, just going up a point size or two would make a massive difference.

I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue is great isn’t it? A veritable chucklesome 30 minutes of comedic genius.

And to start off… Embankment.

Chainreaction just rang to say the shorts I ordered last week were out of stock, so they’ve sent the top on it’s own.

Guess I’ll have to buy this years version from the LBS instead then.

Just for fun, I turned my MZ-R500 minidisc into a pseudo MZ-R900. You’ve got to love mass production which means features are turned on and off by EEPROM settings. Not sure I’ll actually use any of the new functionality though.

Today is the first day I’ve not ridden to work for ages, it was just too wet to ride. And before certain people I won’t name start off on a rant about fair-weather cyclists who turn to the car as soon as there is a spot of rain, I’ll point out that I walked instead and that I’ve not driven to work for several years (other than for out-of-hours visits).

It turns out that they were working at the camp site this morning, only they’d cunningly left the gate locked and hidden their cars. I just had a call asking what happened to me, as I was spotted driving past. Never mind.

I’ve just got back in from a quick ride. It started and finished in sunshine, but there was a 10 minute downpour about 3/4 of the way round. The front brake was no better than before, which is annoying. All the rain had softened the ground nicely makeing some of it nice and grippy, and other bits a tad slippy, but it was a fun ride nevertheless.

Went up to the Scout campsite this morning for our supposed 9:30 start, no one else turned up so I came home again. I wasn’t too bothered as it gave me a chance to finish tweaking computers. I transplanted the disks and memory from old-cartman (Digital Venturis, P233MMX) into new-cartman (Compaq Deskpro, P2-300) with a reasonable amount of success, I just need to wait for it to finish compiling a suitable kernel, and then it’s finished.

Managed to acquire most of a computer from my brother this afternoon, this one is small enough to fit in the bottom of my hifi rack. I swapped the disk and memory over from the previous machine, and it refused to boot. In the end I formatted and reinstalled, and all was well. Next job it to recycle the previous machine as a webserver to replace cartman, and then rebuild that to go to my brother to act as a mailserver for him.

I finally got a turntable this morning, an old Dual one which used to belong to my late uncle, all I need now is some connectors to lengthen the fixed phono leads so that they reach my amp. I ordered some from Maplins this morning so they should be here by midweek, and I can then spend countless hours rediscovering my vinyl collection.

Spent part of the afternoon fettling bikes.

Bled the front brake on the Stiffee, made a total fuck-up of it twice, but got there in the end. Not sure it’s much of an improvement though. Went to remove the outer 44T ring and replace it with a bashring. Removed all the parts, cleaned everything up, only to find that a Truvativ bashring won’t fit on RaceFace cranks. Arse. LBS didn’t have any 4bolt bashrings in stock at all so the chainring went back on again.

Then I tried to work out what was making the funny noise on the Inbred, I think it’s down to a slightly kinked disc rotor so I gave up on that and fitted a shiny new chain as it still had the original one on there. It looks better anyway.

Not the most successful of afternoons, but such is life.

I’m a Chainreaction Addict.

He’s probably right you know.

The Orange Sub5 Hardtail look pretty nice, another rival for the Stiffee by the looks of things.

Goes to Mike Davis for All Your Base Layers Are Belong To Us

And whilst we are on the topic, another sporadic link of the day is All your base are belong to us - the flash version.

Chainreaction have now decided that “…there may be some delay in processing orders placed on Thursday the 24th and Friday the 25th of April as we will be at the Bike Show”. There was no mention of this when I actually ordered on the 24th.

Last night was a skittles match, we eventually won 5-3 after a messy game, not helped by having to play on the “wrong” alley.

The deed is done.

New RaceFace shorts and top are on the way.

I seem to be inextricably caught up in the Chainreaction website and heading rapidly for the link marked “checkout”.

Admittedly it’s the first rain during the day for a while, and the first wet (well, damp really) commute to work for ages.

No riding after work yesterday, my legs were too tired. There won’t be any tonight either as I’ve got a skittles match. The weather doesn’t look too promising for the next few days either, might get a ride in Saturday if everything goes to plan.

I was finally able to go riding wearing the Nema Jewel shorts I won at the singlespeed world championships two years ago. They are quite nice as well.

They didn’t help me ride any better though, I should have listened to my legs and not gone riding, or at least ridden somewhere flat. The first 20 minutes of climbing was absolute hell, I had no strength at all in my legs, even a minidisc of Blaggers ITA was unable to assist me fight against gravity.

Once I’d reached the top of the climb, the rest of the ride was fantastic as usual. I’m getting used to the descent through the woods now, only stopping to step over one little drop-off that doesn’t look too safe, especially when riding alone. I stopped off on the way back through town to collect a belated easter egg, this short rest was enough to give me the energy to sprint my way back through the center of town and home again.

I’m now refueled with fresh pasta and in dire need of a shower.

After 4 nice days off, it’s a bit of a let down to have to come back to work again.
At the moment I’m sat gazing out of the window while listening to The Damned, and trying to decide whether to go for a ride after work or not.

Actually, I think the ride is a dead cert. I just need to decide which bike to take. I’ll probably wimp out and take the Stiffee.

Went riding with Ian and Matt this morning, it was strange riding with other people, and slightly demoralising when you realise you aren’t as fast as you think you are.

Comedy relief was provided by Ian riding possibly the noisiest bike in existance, a demo Cannondale Scalpel with bad case of “fucked bottom bracket”.

The rain held off for the duration of the ride, although it was a bit windy at times.

Boring details: 22.4 miles, 573m/1879ft of climbing, took 2.5 hours (ish).

I think I need a new left knee. I couldn’t put any weight on mine first thing this morning, however after hobbling around for 10 minutes, it went “click” rather loudly, and now seems a bit better. I’m sure that a couple of hours on the bike is just what it needs.

Today I excelled myself with acts befitting my rock and roll lifestyle.

I took the car through the carwash (wow), washed some towels, visited my parents, and reglued a desk drawer. Forget throwing TV’s out of hotel windows, this is where it’s at.

To psych myself up for the ride tomorrow, I’m watching Kranked I through IV in order.

So that was Easter.

Had a quiet day. Partially stripped Bluescreen (old XP workstation), overclocked the processors a bit more, and resurrected it as Batfink, running FreeBSD 5.0 .

Went for an explore on the Jack Flash for an hour. Maybe I’m just looking in all the wrong places, but Bath is devoid of anywhere suitable for a bit of urban play riding.

Went to put the freshly patched rear wheel onto the Stiffee, only to find that the front was mostly flat again. I suspected it had a slow puncture.

To cut a long story short, I removed 4 thorns from the tyre, and patched the 4 matching holes in the tube. I’ll bin the tube next time it punctures.

The ride is sorted for tomorrow, Matt is coming out as well which will make three. I’ve got a route planned, mostly similar to Fridays ride, but with a different route back from North Stoke village. Should be fun. It’ll be strange riding with other people again.

Well, my blog now has a home of it’s own at blog.dynamite.org, and this should be it’s first native entry.

I’ve imported all the old crap, and you can now even comment on the rubbish I write.

How exciting.

This afternoon I descaled the kettle and shower head. How rock and roll is that?

More usefully I patched the punctured tube, extracated the thorn from the tyre (not an easy task), and put it all back together and reinflated the tyre. If it holds air overnight I’ll pop it back in the bike in the morning.

Well Shadow (the new pc) now has 1GB of RAM, slightly over the top, but nice to have.

I spent an hour or so rebuilding the case on Bluescreen (my previous main workstation) and taking un-needed bits out of it, then tidying up the computer room so that I could squeeze the new cabinet in, and tidy up the computers a bit (there are 4 in there at the moment).

I’ve not got as far as repairing the puncture yet. Maybe I’ll do it when I’ve finished this mug of tea.

Very windy outside now.

Popped down to the LBS this morning and picked up a nice longsleeve RaceFace top for half price, luckily the only one they had left was in my size. RaceFace is a rare company where their XL cycling kit actually fits me, and if anything, is slightly too big.

I might pop out later and get another 512MB RAM for the new PC, and I need to repair the puncture I must have picked up on the ride yesterday. But that can all wait until this cafetiere of fresh coffee has been drunk.

Went out for a nice ride today in the sunshine. Ended up linking two normal routes together, one of which I’d not ridden for a few years. The ride ended up being 24.6 miles long with 653m (2142ft) of climbing, and it took me almost exactly 3 hours. Only problem was I ran out of water at the top of the third big climb. Oops.

I now need a nice long shower and a rest.

Leftfield makes the ride feel easier, but no faster.

Elvis Costello (When I was Cruel. Cruel Smile) is too slow paced.

Why is it on one of the nicest days of the year, some bugger parks a mini-mpv outside my office blocking off my view of passing ladies?

It’s just not fair.

Link of the day: http://www.orisinal.com

Popped home at lunchtime to check the post. Two packages from Novatech containing the missing blanking plates and two bags of screws and things. I’m not convinced they were the right screws, but I’ve bodged it together so that the motherboard is now fitted into the case. When I get home I’ll put the rest of it together.

It’s still lovely weather out, the were certainly a lot of nice ladies to look (ok, stare) at on the ride to and from home. It was such nice riding weather that I was sorely tempted to keep on riding past work and head off into the hills. I’ll get a nice ride in tomorrow hopefully though.

Hmm. The couriers now claim that I took delivery at 09:05. This was after they told me that the van never left the depot until 9:45.

No post today, so no PC building tonight.

Well, Novatech think they’ve put a couple of bags of mounting bits in with the extra parts they sent me yesterday, hopefully it will have arrived this morning and all will be well. Knowing the usual state of our post, it’ll probably arrive tomorrow

The weather is too good to waste sitting in work. Shame it won’t last until the long bank-holiday weekend.

Had an apologetic email from the couriers this morning saying that they have requested the log-sheet from the driver to check the discrepancy in the delivery times. Hopefully he’ll get a good kicking as he was a miserable sod.

I must chase up the missing parts for the case later. If they can’t get them to me for tomorrow, I’ll send this one back and pop down PC World and buy one. I can’t be bothered to wait until next week for the parts to arrive.

From my extensive testing, well from commuting to work for the last two days, I can exclusively reveal that listening to the Dead Kennedys makes you ride faster. This may only work for Plastic Surgery Disasters though, as I haven’t got any further through the disc yet.

Maybe the jeyboys have got it all wrong? Instead of worrying about rolling resistance and shaving their legs, they should be deliberating over what music goes best with different types of course.

Hmm, on closer inspection, the new computer case is missing all the useful bits like drive-bay blanking plates, motherboard mounting bits, expansion slot blanking plates etc. Which makes it effectively useless.

The couriers also appear to have falsified the delivery details to make it look like they delivered 45 minutes earlier, which was convienently just before the 10am delivery deadline.

I had to read the headline to this story three times before I realised that it did actually say what I thought it said.

Amtrak finally arrived at 10:40. All the parts look pretty good, although there appear to be some missing blanking plates for the case, and a lack of screws to attach the motherboard to anything.

Just had a call from the suppliers, the blanking plates will be posted later, and I can probably find enough screws in my pile of spares. This evenings job is to build the machine up. Should be fun.

And finally, just for matt02: It’s now 8mm.

Well, my delivery is out and about somewhere, apparently the van wouldn’t start (a likely story) and didn’t leave ’til 9:45 and there were a couple of other “before 10AM” deliveries on-board.

Hmm, Amtrak haven’t arrived yet. What the betting that “next day delivery before 10AM” proves to be something entirely different?

And Blogger have broken archiving so it’s time to sort out my own solution.

A boring afternoon at work is made infinitely better with a minidisc of the Dead Kennedys

Apparently the bits for my new PC have been dispatched, which should mean that they’ll be delivered before 10AM tomorrow, and I can build it in the evening.

Tonights job might be to rearrange the “server room” (a.k.a. the spare bedroom) to make room for it. I should be able to retire Kenny once I’ve finished the cycle of rebuilds, but somehow I just know that it will end up being used for something else.

The difficult part will be coming up with names for the new machine and the rebuilt existing one.

Well I finally caved in and ordered a new PC, my aging dual-celeron machine is getting more and more unreliable.

I’ve ordered an Athlon 2000 with 512MB RAM, 80GB disc, Aluminium screwless case, DVD reader. I’ll have to donate the CD-RW and Matrox graphics card from existing machines and sort out an ethernet card.

I also popped down to PC World (for my sins) and picked up a new Microsoft Natural Keyboard, and Trackball Explorer. Depsite your opinions on Microsoft’s software, they do make by far the best keyboards and mice/trackballs. I refuse to use anything else.

All being well, the new machine will become my main XP desktop, the current dual-celeron with get rebuilt and have FreeBSD installed. I should then be able to retire one of the aging Pentium based machines.

Another great ride.

Went out on the Inbred and did the Uni-bike route. A rigid single speed is quite probably the worst bike to take. The first part is all uphill, and 32:16 is a bit too much like hard work. Then you have the off-road part where rigid forks aren’t the best choice, then the route back along the canal and through town could do with something a bit bigger than 32:16.

Despite all that it was a good ride, although my arms are a bit numb now. A minidisc of Elvis Costello helped take some of the edge of the climbs, and it was nice and cool out which made it quite comfortable to ride in.

Time for a mug of tea and a shower.

…and scores the last minute winning try for Bath against London Irish.

Bath 18 - London Irish 15.

They are fucking fantastic.

Got home from work, got changed, filled the camelbak, popped the mini-disc on, and headed out. I did a different route from the last two rides, there is less offroad, but it’s a nice little ride with a couple of fast descents on narrow tracks. It made a change riding while listening to music, I don’t normally bother. The ride took about 79 minutes in the end, had 285m of climbing, mostly in the first few miles, and was a shade under 12 miles in total. I’m knackered now, but loved every minute of it.

5-0

Need I say any more?

I was originally meant to be going to a workshop day tomorrow, except I’m not now because my line-manager is a wanker.

He is meant to be going to the workshop day as well, and is obviously too scared or stupid to actually tell me directly that I can’t go. He just said “I’m not around much for the rest of the week, you’re not going anywhere are you?”, I replied that I was going to be offsite tomorrow. His reply was “Let me rephrase that, you’re not going anywhere this week”.

Personally I think it’s so that I don’t notice that he is going to skive off and not bother going himself.

Completely and utterly pointless link of the day: http://ohlssonvox.8k.com/fdd_raid.htm

Another damn fine ride. Nice and sunny, not too many people out, almost a perfect ride.

Took a different route off the top of the hill through the woods, not quite as much fun as my normal route, but it made a nice change. I’ll ruin all the good exercise with pizza and beer tonight though whilst I work my way through the first half of the second series of The West Wing which popped through the door this morning.

The sun is shining, the gps has fresh batteries, the bike is ready, it’s time to fill the camelbak and head out into the big wide world.

The planned route is the same as last sunday, with a different route through the woods. Back later.

Plans to go riding last night were thwarted by getting home and promptly being called back into work again to kick a recalcitrant translational switch back into action. By the time I got home again, I couldn’t be arsed to see if I had lights that were charged properly, so I sat and watched a DVD instead. Tonight is scouts, so no time for riding, but hopefully I can get a quick ride in tomorrow, and maybe again on Sunday after more scout type stuff. Hopefully this month will see plenty of riding and I can lose more than the 5.5lbs I lost last month.

Anyway, who is this crunchie and why should I thank him?

Well the ADSL finally returned after 16.5 hours. The resulting deluge of mail promptly caused a daemon to die on cartman (sorry to any custardninjas awaiting mail), and nearly killed Kenny[1]. Maybe I ought to upgrade them from the current Pentium200 incarnations?

Life without the internet seems strange, despite the fact that I existed quite happily without it for 22 years or so.

[1] FreeBSD workstation where I read all my mail and stuff

My ADSL connection has now been down for nearly 15 hours, and there is no indication when it will return, it was supposedly fixed 12 hours ago. Looks like it might be time to look for a new ISP.